Deadly Foes of Spider-Man 1 page 14 by Kerry Gammill & Mike Machlan

Another great Spidey villains central page by the always impeccable Kerry Gammill.

This miniseries featured that team of b or c-lister villains and sadly only offered partial art by Mr Gammill on the first two issues (producing a mere 25 pages for it). The split art chores may seem strange for a miniseries but if you look at the top of the page, you will see a crossed Marvel Comics presents stamp. So my educated guess would be that this story was probably commissioned by Marvel for that format, 8 to 10 page at a time and later repurposed as a mini. Ok that’s it for the Back Issue kind of trivia 😊

As always, Gammill is perfect at staging the characters within the page, using great different shots to keep the reader’s eye interested and at body language and conveying emotions. I would say that his staging on this page is on the same level as that of Jose Luis Garcia Lopez if I as to compare two greats.

In panel 1, you have a very confident Speed Demon coming to the evil secret meeting of the team. Gammill really owns that character graphically, having drawn him in Marvel Team up as well as his entry to the Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe (whose art I own and can be seen in this very gallery). See how Gammill is leading the reader’s eye with the swirling speed lines behind the villain as he is sitting.

In panel 2, you have a great establishing shot from above of the whole team. Each has a different position or action as it should be. The use of shadows generated by the lamp AND the use of zipatone (and how they overlap) steals the show in setting the mood here. Again the circling shadow is leading the reader’s eye from left to right.

In panel 3, tension arise as the egos rub against each other. Beetle is explaining his plan when he is interrupted by Boomerang…

…in panel 4, in which he questions the leadership of the team (a classic plot point amongst villains). Gammill aptly turned the camera around to showcase the two opposite sides of the argument.

Panel 5 is really great at showing the Beetle firing away a blast (love those pointy fingers-zap zap!) while Boomerang whose body language is perfectly defensive as he charges one of his weapon. We even get one of Gammill's artistic trademarks in Bommerang's open hand. Also of note is the great use of a tilted camera angle that adds more dynamism to the scene.

Panel 6 shows us a great close up on Boomerang as he faces another threat off camera in the Rhino gripping him. His surprised face is pitch perfect here in relation to the next panel. He didn't expect this, it shows, and the strenght of the grip holding him probably has to do with his emotion.

The Last panel is fantastic at showing the difference in power sets within the team as Rhino effortlessly crushed Boomerang's weapon and towering him as well. You can tell from other panels above that Boomerang is a very athletic man and yet he looks like a child when compared to Rhino's size. Gammill did a great job at playing each bodytype against the other ans setting that scene throughout the page. Bommerang clearly realize he has not chance to push his argument further and this is well shown in his body language. Lastly, everything in that panel point the reader towards the bottom right, to turn the page over: their profile positions, the circular composition of the panel again and Boomerang's left foot. Thoughtfull storytelling.

I’m underlying all of this to emphasize of masterful a storyteller Gammill is. This is a packed 7 panels page with tons of unnecessary text & dialogues and yet all of this looks absolutely E-FFORT-LESS and remains super fluid throughout. The amount of visual information and details he manages to infuse within the page is incredible (and I’m not talking pure detail as adding tiny lines on top of tiny lines doesn’t serve storytelling). You basically don’t need to read any dialogue or text to understand what’s going on. A quiet page for sure but what a lesson in storytelling.

The inks by Machlan are very nice throughout but I wonder if he really inked all the issue given how different some of the other Gammill pages look.